All posts for the month April, 2017

The political and economic crisis punctuated by the impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 persists unabated under the troubled administration of Michel Temer. Stagnation is fueling unemployment, and the government’s efforts to rein in pensions and limit public spending are reinforcing the perception that the principal objective of those who ousted Dilma is to cut back on social rights promised in the 1988 Constitution and deepened by Dilma and her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Even more ominously, the continuing cascade of corruption allegations is also undermining support for the new government.

Surveys show that only 10 percent of Brazilians rate the Temer government as “good” or “great,” and that its legitimacy is further undermined by whistleblowers alleging that the president and nine of his ministers are corrupt.

The notorious “Car Wash” anti-corruption campaign is hurting more than Temer and his men. Zealous prosecutors and judges are essentially criminalizing not only politicians’ behavior but, through aggressive interpretations of the law, the practice of politics itself. The targeting of Dilma’s leftist PT is most obvious, but the deluge of charges is now buffeting all the major political parties. Leaders of the center-right PSDB, including former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, have been accused of corruption as well. Except for some miniscule political parties, virtually the entire political system now faces corruption charges.

The 2018 presidential election offers the most plausible avenue for emerging from the crisis, but even that remains highly problematic. There is a relative consensus among the political class and political analysts that a new, legitimate, and directly elected president could reverse, or at least limit, the deterioration of the political system. With just over a year remaining for candidates to register, the likely roster is very uncertain, in part because a basic feature of constitutional democracy – that citizens are allowed to compete for office – is increasingly in jeopardy amid the current anti-corruption fever. Early polls place Lula as the strongest among the likely candidates, and he remains in first place even when surveys include Sérgio Moro, the most important judge in the Car Wash saga, who has not declared himself to be in the running. But it is unclear whether the courts will let Lula stand for office. Right-wing media are hammering Lula’s alleged corrupt practices while downplaying those of Temer and his cabinet. Potential candidates of PSDB have been denounced for receiving bribes and having overseas bank accounts, and their numbers are shrinking in the polls. An alternative now being floated as a potential PSDB candidate is João Dória, the newly elected mayor of São Paulo who, like U.S. President Donald Trump, is a non-mainstream politician and businessman who formerly hosted the Brazilian version of the TV show The Apprentice.)

This uncertainty – even if the parties resist the continuing wave of Car Wash denunciations and take back some political space from the unelected judicial branch of government – raises the question whether, over the next 18 months, Brazil’s 32 year-old democracy proves itself to be irreversible or to have been an all too brief interlude in the country’s political history. The apparent appeal of outsiders in an environment that is criminalizing politics is a worrisome sign.

April 24, 2017

* Fabio Kerche is Research Fellow at CLALS and Researcher at Casa de Rui Barbosa Foundation, Rio de Janeiro.

By choosing to support Presidential candidate Alejandro Guillier, the Chilean Socialist Party is turning the page on its ideological platform. / Movilh Chile / Flickr / Creative Commons

The Chilean Socialist Party’s rejection of former President and party standard-bearer Ricardo Lagos as its candidate in the Presidential election scheduled for November signals a break with the political program and leadership that it has offered since the end of the Pinochet dictatorship. But the center-left still has a lot to do to sustain its base going into the future. In a secret vote – a process that caused heated discussions and revealed deep divisions between factions of the party – the Central Committee decided to support political newcomer Senator Alejandro Guillier. Already the decision to choose the candidate through a closed-door voting by the leadership, instead of a general consultation as wanted by the party’s constituency, prompted José Miguel Insulza (another historic party figure and former Secretary General of the OAS) to withdraw his own candidacy.

The preference for Guillier, a well-known journalist and non-militant of the Socialist Party (PS), has an obvious explanation: the polls. While Guillier ranks second in the polls just behind the center-right candidate – billionaire former President Sebastián Piñera – Lagos remained stuck beneath the threshold of 5 percent. The PS decision cannot be reduced to mere pragmatism, however. Lagos represented continuity with the generation that has represented the center-left since the restoration of democracy, based on market friendly policies with social redistribution. Much of its base has grown disillusioned by the pace of redistribution, however, and combined with dismay over signs of corruption –modest in scale by regional standards but politically embarrassing to the party and to incumbent President Michelle Bachelet – that disenchantment jeopardizes PS prospects moving forward. By following the polls and choosing Guillier, the PS is turning the page of the transition to democracy period.

But the PS may be abandoning its previous ideological platform without a clear idea of what is going to be the new one. The ideological and programmatic orientations behind Guillier’s candidacy are unclear. To become the single candidate of the center-left, moreover, Guillier will probably need to compete in primary elections against the candidate of the Christian Democrats. Whoever emerges from that process will compete in November against two rather well defined ideological positions.

The right-wing candidate, Sebastián Piñera, offers a program oriented to undo the progressive reforms undertaken by the Bachelet government, such as reforms of the tax, pension, and education systems. Polls suggest that this program of “neoliberal restoration” may attract centrist voters who, skeptical of the political and social changes associated with those reforms, may prove receptive to Piñera’s contention that they are the cause of a recent slowdown in economic growth and tightening of the labor market.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the leftist coalition Frente Amplio strives to enhance and deepen the reforms; expand social rights and redistribution; and reduce the role of markets, particularly in the educational sector and retirement pensions. In a strategic move, Frente Amplio chose a charismatic journalist (and former radio colleague of Guillier), Beatriz Sánchez, as its candidate. According to polls, she is already attracting support from prospective voters who Guillier would need in order to become Chile’s next President.

In selecting Guillier, the center-left is acknowledging the exhaustion of its base with the generation that led the Chilean transition to democracy. Disillusion is particularly deep among younger Chileans who must be a critical foundation for any enduring project of social reform. Party stalwarts like Lagos and Insulza represent precisely the wrong message in that context. But if the center-left is clearly trying to turn the page, to succeed it must define its post-transition programmatic platform — or risk being relegated for the first time since Allende’s Unidad Popular to be the third political force after a united right and a united left.

April 20, 2017

* Stefano Palestini Céspedes is CLALS Research Fellow and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Freie Universität Berlin, where he specializes in international organizations and regional governance.

The Trump administration’s expansion of an already enlarged deportation apparatus and its attempt to establish a ban against immigrants from targeted countries has intensified the Sanctuary Movement and driven it to explore new ways of protecting undocumented migrants and other groups that are under attack. The new policies have generated a wave of protests and institutional responses from activists, lawyers, and immigrant-serving organizations as well as in higher education across the country. Just days after the November election, hundreds of thousands of students, faculty, and staff at over 190 schools, colleges, and universities supported petitions calling on their respective administrations to declare their campuses sanctuaries. The campaigns want schools to commit to withhold information from immigration enforcement authorities and disallow the presence of those authorities on campus without a court order or warrant, as well as establish institutional support to ensure that students with precarious migration status have access to the resources they need. At the same time, there are almost three hundred sanctuary cities, counties, and states, which are at the center of Trump’s promises to cut federal funding to any local or state government that adopts this stance of defiance. Republican Members of Congress in January introduced a bill (HR 483) to cut funding to universities that declare sanctuary.

The Sanctuary Movement has historical roots. In the 1980s, 400 religious congregations around the United States helped refugees from Central American wars enter the country. In addition to challenging discriminatory U.S. immigration practices, the movement condemned U.S. support for the governments prosecuting those wars. Years of effort led to legislation granting Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Central American refugees.

More recently, a New Sanctuary Movement emerged in 2007 in response to mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. It emphasized raising public awareness about the individual lives at stake and pressing for legislative reform. Today’s resistance is an outgrowth of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama Administrations’ raids, deporting almost 3 million individuals, and the massive immigrant detention system that they expanded.

Many cities, universities, and NGOs have backed away from the concept of sanctuary in response to Trump’s threats, arguing that the risk of losing federal funding or of putting themselves in the spotlight is too high, or that the sanctuary concept promises more than it can really offer. As Lewis and Clark College Professor Elliot Young has written, “Sanctuary is an aspiration, a statement of values rather than a statement of fact.” Indeed, one of the arguments against the proclamation of sanctuary by universities is the misunderstanding of the term: The undocumented community and its defenders have varied interpretations of what it means in practice, whereas the legal limitations on what can be done in the face of a court order are very clear. Yet, the ambiguity of the term leaves a space for creative interpretation and should be seen as an opportunity rather than a limitation.

Most universities, including my own, The New School, have issued a standard statement that they will not share information or cooperate with immigration authorities without a court order, but they have shied away from using the term sanctuary – even though the term is a significant form of resistance to unjust policies, a moral stance, and a message of solidarity to the larger university community.

Reviving the concept of sanctuary in this political context provides an opportunity to open a debate about the rights and protections that marginalized groups need, and how universities and other institutions that have joined the sanctuary movement in the last months (restaurants, art spaces, among others) can support and extend it. The time we are living in requires us to reexamine existing frameworks and concepts and mobilize them in effective ways when the principles and values we stand for are under attack. Declarations of sanctuary campus send a clear message of support to vulnerable individuals within the community. They also nurture transnational networks of solidarity – not just through churches, shelters, and civil society groups – but also including universities in Mexico, Central America, and other countries, to help individuals returning to their origin countries (deported or voluntarily) live better lives, including overcoming significant barriers to continuing their education. Migrants’ need and right to protection and education does not end when they cross the border, and universities’ ability to help them begins by taking a stance and making our campuses accessible, safe and open; in other words, making them sanctuary.

April 18, 2017

* Alexandra Délano Alonso is an Assistant Professor of Global Studies at The New School. She is the author of Mexico and Its Diaspora in the United States: Policies of Emigration since 1848 (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and co-editor of Borders and the Politics of Mourning (Social Research, 2016) with Benjamin Nienass. She is also a participant in the Robert A. Pastor North America Research Initiative.

In Mexico City, citizens mobilized against President Trump on his Inauguration Day with signs against U.S. imperialism (“Fuera Yankees”) and effigies of the U.S. President. / Adrián Martínez / Flickr / Creative Commons

The Mexican government hasn’t yet figured out how to react to U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed policies toward Mexico, which have already eroded trust and potential cooperation, but one thing is clear: Mexican nationalism alone will not help. In terms of security cooperation, Trump has proposed a “great wall” and increased police and military presence to keep “bad hombres” outside U.S. territory without the consent or cooperation of his southern neighbor. The notion of shared responsibility, which shaped the Mérida Initiative and informed most cooperation under past administrations, has been virtually abandoned. Instead, Mexico has been presented to the U.S. public only as the source of security challenges – illegal migration, drugs, and common crime – and not part of the solution.

The Mexican government’s response has been, so far, equivocal at best. President Peña Nieto and his administration have proven incapable of articulating a coherent message towards Trump’s provocations. Responding to an erratic, Twitter-driven foreign policy poses challenges for any country accustomed to traditional diplomatic interaction, but Peña Nieto has an additional force to manage: surging nationalism from the left, center, and right. This revival includes disjointed appeals on social media for citizens to boycott “gringo” companies – notably Starbucks – and to consume “only national” products. Many campaigns express solidarity with the Mexican government as well as repudiation of Trump. The cover of Letras Libres, for example, carries an image that emulates Mexico’s national coat of arms – an eagle attacking a snake – but the snake being devoured by the Mexican eagle wears a blond Trump-style hairdo.

Nationalism, however, is not the answer. Beyond its potentially chauvinistic nature, it can too easily translate into a call for political loyalty and suppress necessary criticism of the current government. In moments of crisis, Mexican elites have long used anti-American sentiment to create consensus, overcome divisions, and even conceal a government’s lack of legitimacy – unhelpful in a moment that, like now, citizens need to hold their government accountable for its impunity, corruption, and human rights abuses.

Instead of making themselves feel good with nationalist slogans, Mexicans should assert their commitment to multilateralism and international cooperation, not only in trade (which at times seems to be the only issue on the agenda) but also on matters of security, human rights, and the rule of law. A critique of Trump’s militaristic understanding of immigration should include a critique of Mexico’s own failure to adopt a more integral migration policy south of its border – one protecting Central American migrants from the rampage of organized crime and capable of addressing the institutional and structural challenges behind the surge of Central American migration. Mexican citizens should call into question their government’s resort to militarized border control on the southern border, a strategy that in many ways mirrors the U.S.’ short-sighted and unilateral response to migration. By the same token, criticism of Trump’s reactive and militarized vision of security should also involve a close look at Mexico’s own militarized, short-term, and repressive response to insecurity and violence.

Some Mexican intellectuals have insinuated that an effective critique of Trump and his policies calls for a revival of national pride and honor. Letras Libres director Enrique Krauze, for example, tweeted that not attending protests to denounce Trump’s actions is a sign of “passivity, indifference, and even cowardice.” Yet if Mexico proves incapable of articulating a sound critique and resistance vis-à-vis Trump the real cause will not be a lack of nationalist ardor, but rather citizens’ incapacity to move beyond nationalism and uncritical support for their government. Mexico does not need nationalistic and “brave” citizens as much as it needs a citizenry committed to international cooperation, transparency, and critical engagement and that can call into question another government’s erroneous policies – like Trump’s – while demanding better of its own.

On April 3, a special meeting of the OAS Permanent Council voted to condemn Venezuela’s action that allows the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ) to take over the functions of the National Assembly. / Juan Manuel Herrera/ OAS / Flickr / Creative Commons

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro seems determined to validate critics’ claims that the separation of powers in Venezuela has been breached, thereby strengthening diplomatic efforts to force him to reverse course. After the OAS Permanent Council met for two days to discuss Secretary General Almagro’s call for Caracas’ suspension, Venezuelan courts on March 29 authorized the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ) to take over the functions of the National Assembly, and to limit the immunity of the members of the parliament. The action reinvigorated an exhausted domestic opposition and further infuriated international observers. Two days later, the TSJ overturned the two rulings after Maduro, casting himself as a mediator between competing constitutional powers, requested it. These erratic actions signaled the worsening erosion of the rule of law as well as the divisions in the government and the Bolivarian movement.

The reversal did not take the edge off OAS General Secretary Almagro’s and others’ condemnation of the power grab as an autogolpe or “self-coup.” The Inter-American Democratic Charter was designed in 2001 precisely to provide the OAS with instruments to deter self-coups in the aftermath of those carried out by Alberto Fujimori (Peru) and Jorge Serrano (Guatemala) in the 1990s.

The TSJ decisions and Venezuela’s defiance didn’t put Almagro’s suspension efforts over the top, but the Permanent Council is now much more actively involved in the crisis. Venezuela has isolated itself within the Permanent Council. Speaking at the Council, its delegation severely criticized individual member states the day before the TSJ decisions. Chile and Peru recalled their ambassadors for consultation after it. Ecuador, an ally since the time of Hugo Chávez, distanced itself from Maduro. On April 1, MERCOSUR invoked the Protocol of Ushuaia – the group’s democracy clause – against Venezuela, and it joined Colombia and Chile in a forceful public statement on behalf of UNASUR. Mexico, historically a jealous guardian of the principle of non-intervention, has assumed the leadership in holding Venezuela accountable for its undemocratic practices. As a result, the Permanent Council on April 3 approved a resolution condemning the TSJ decisions and committing to “undertake as necessary further diplomatic initiatives to foster the restoration of the democratic institutional system,” including convening a ministerial meeting.

Building a consensus for tougher action in the Permanent Council will be difficult, however. Last week’s resolution was approved by 19 member states, but four abstained and 10 were absent. Any proposal to suspend Venezuela will require two-thirds of the members’ affirmative votes. Although there is still a long way to go to make the OAS part of the solution of the Venezuelan crisis, the General Secretary’s activism has set an important precedent in rallying a majority of states in the Americas to come together to discuss a member’s erosion of democratic principles and institutions – and to condemn the non-democratic actions of a democratically-elected government. This is a first for the organization, and it is a big step toward fulfilling the original purpose of the drafters of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.

April 10, 2017

* Stefano Palestini Céspedes is a CLALS Fellow and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Freie Universität Berlin, where he specializes in international organizations and regional governance.

Policies adopted in response to the end of the “supercycle” have slowed and, in some cases, reversed the reforms that moved the region toward greater decentralization, citizen participation, and environmental protection over the past decade. Latin American governments of the left and right used the commodities supercycle to drive growth and poverty reduction at an unprecedented pace. They also undertook institutional reforms aimed at improving governance at large.

Even before demand and prices for Latin American energy and minerals began to rise in the early 2000s, some Latin American countries launched processes of decentralization (Colombia and Bolivia); started to institutionalize mechanisms for citizens’ participation in decision making (Colombia and Bolivia); and built progressively stronger environmental management frameworks (Colombia and Ecuador). Peru pressed ahead with decentralization and participation at the start of the supercycle, and when it was in full swing, created a Ministry of the Environment.

Implementation of the reforms was subordinated by governments’ overarching goal of fostering investments in the extractive sector. Indigenous consultation rights in Peru, for example, were approved in the second half of 2011, but implementation was delayed a year and limited only to indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. President Ollanta Humala, giving in to the mining lobby, claimed there were no indigenous peoples in the Andes and that no consultations were needed around mining projects. Local pressure forced a reversal, and by early 2015 four consultation projects on mid-size mining projects were launched.

These reformist policies have suffered setbacks since the decrease in Asia’s and particularly China’s appetite for Latin American energy and minerals has caused prices to fall – and the value of exports, taxes, and royalties, and public incomes along with them. The latest ECLAC data show a decline in economic growth and a rebound of poverty both in absolute and relative figures. The gradual fall in the price of minerals starting in 2013 and the abrupt collapse in oil prices by the end of 2015 reversed this generally favorable trend.

The response of the governments of resource-dependent countries has been “race to the bottom” policies, which included steps backward in fiscal, social, and environmental policies. Governments’ bigger concern has been to foster investments in the new and more adverse circumstances. In this new scenario, the processes of decentralization, participation, and environmental management have been negatively impacted as local authorities and citizens’ participation – as well as environmental standards and protocols – are perceived by companies and rent-seeking public officials as obstacles to investments.

Peru’s Law 30230 in 2014, for example, reduced income tax rates, weakened the oversight capacity of the Ministry of the Environment, and weakened indigenous peoples’ claim public lands.

The correlation between the supercycle years and the progress and regressions in reforms is clear. (click here for high-resolution graphic). During the supercycle – when huge amounts of money were to be made – companies and government were willing to incorporate the cost of citizen participation, decentralization and environmental standards and protocols. But now, governments are desperate for new investments to overcome the fall in economic growth and extractive rents, and extractive companies are not willing any more to assume these additional costs. Those who oppose the “race to the bottom strategy” are fighting hard to restore the reforms and to move ahead with decentralization, increased participation, and enhanced environmental management, to achieve a new democratic governance of the territories and the natural resources they contain.

A participant in a march in Venezuela holds up the country’s constitution. / TeleSURtv / Flickr / Creative Commons

Recent events in Paraguay and Venezuela raise yet again the issue of whether political leaders are capable of deliberating and acting in ways that show an appreciation for constitutional essentials, or whether they choose instead to perform their roles and offices in ways that continuously test constitutional principles and, over time, contribute to their erosion. The principles of re-election and term limits are important in every presidential democracy, the product of historical circumstance. In the case of Paraguay, a dictatorship under strongman Alfredo Stroessner from 1954 to 1989, sensitivity to the idea of a president serving for too long is strong. Venezuela’s elimination of term limits a few years ago set a dangerous precedent. Other constitutions limit incumbents to one term (Mexico, Paraguay) or two terms (United States, Colombia); in some constitutions, presidents cannot be re-elected immediately but can run later after a term has elapsed (Peru, Uruguay).

More important than the constitutionality of term limits is that the re-election issue be settled in a way that commands the assent of all parties – within a certain spirit of constitutionalism. Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes’s error was to think that he could change the constitution by means that violated this spirit, even if the public would arguably support a modification of the re-election rule if pursued in the right way. (Since the fall of Stroessner, the Partido Colorado, the pillar of his rule, has won every election except in 2008, when Catholic priest Fernando Lugo was elected. Lugo was deposed in 2012.) The President of the Senate, Roberto Acevedo, opposed the change and was outraged by the way it was adopted: the Senate voted in a special session held behind closed doors. In that session, 25 Senators approved the measure, bypassing the opposition Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico.

The showdown in Venezuela over President Maduro’s effort to shut down the congress was another undemocratic blunder. A decision by the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ), Venezuela’s supreme court, to arrogate legislative functions to itself or delegate them to other branches or agencies was unconstitutional. (The TSJ has the power only to declare a law invalid or that another branch of government is operating outside the law.) When the Fiscal General de la República, Venezuela’s equivalent of attorney general, Luisa Ortega Díaz argued that the TSJ’s decision was unconstitutional, she gave herself political cover by expressing loyalty to the Constitution of 1999 – the legitimacy of which has long been undermined by the fact that it is a document made to measure for chavismo. As a result of this and significant domestic and international pressure, the government backed down – a rare event. The attorney general’s insistence that the constitution not be violated indicates that a spirit of constitutionalism among chavistas is not completely dead, but it also shows that it remains a mechanism for coordinating the actions of agents within the government. Her position also raises the possibility of a split between constitutionalists and hardline militarists within the regime.

Democracy is not just a system of rules. It requires politicians to acknowledge and respect the essential constitutional agreements that have to underpin the struggle for power in a self-governing community. The crises in Paraguay and Venezuela both forewarn of the dangers of excessive partisanship and the risks of playing fast and loose with constitutional rules. Something similar seems to be playing out in Ecuador, where allegations of fraud have been made by the opposition. If spurious, they are condemnable; if supported by evidence, they are deeply disturbing. Either way, they reflect mistrust in institutions after a decade of rule by Rafael Correa (Likewise, U.S. Senate Republicans’ threats to use of the “nuclear option” to confirm Judge Gorsuch threatens to deepen the politicization of the U.S. Supreme Court.) The cost of the failure of politicians and citizens to cultivate a spirit of constitutionalism is very heavy. In Paraguay, it has resulted in deadly protests and resignations by top officials; in Venezuela it has taken the country to the brink of civil war; in Ecuador, there is a real prospect of debilitating governance problems as Lenín Moreno of Alianza PAIS takes office; and in the United States we are starting to see the kinds of governance problems that have long been associated with the “politicized states” (to use Douglas Chalmers’s phrase) of Latin America.

April 5, 2017

* Maxwell A. Cameron is Director of the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions at the University of British Columbia.